ACL rehab stories - Aoife Molloy

In the third of a series of interviews with top level Gaelic games players across the four codes who have sustained ACL ruptures, Galway LGFA star, Aoife Molloy, spoke to GAA.ie about her own rehab journey to help promote the GAA Medical, Scientific and Welfare Committee’s ongoing research into the injury.

GAA, LGFA, and Camogie players and administrators are being asked to assist this research by completing a short survey.

The Player Survey can be completed HERE.

The Administrator Survey can be completed HERE.

Go HERE for more information on the MSW's research in to ACL injuries in Gaelic games.

GAA.ie: Aoife, can you tell us the circumstances of how you tore your ACL?

Aoife Molloy: It was two years ago in the second round of the National League against Mayo. I suppose the lead up to that was a lot of hard training and I think the game was on the Saturday and we had training the four days coming up to that, so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and the game was Saturday, so there was probably a bit of fatigue in it as well but you couldn't put it all down to that either. I didn’t have the best running form and my strength and form in the gym wasn’t close to where it needed to be, so all of that could have played a part.

There were 30 other girls there that had the same training load as me and I was the only one who did it. I was just kind of chasing one of the Mayo girls on the inside and she cut in behind me, in left, and I tried to go with her and my right knee just fell in and you could just hear the snap and I knew well what it was when it happened because it was kind of just exactly how everyone had described it.

GAA.ie: How did it feel at the time?

AM: It was excruciating pain, but it's weird because it's only for a few minutes and then you're walking and standing on it and you think you're okay. That is what everyone says when they do it, so that's kind of a sure sign you have it done, really. I remember two girls on our team, one who was rehabbing her own ACL at the time and the other who had done it a few years ago, were walking towards me and I was just thinking to myself, 'I don't want to see you two right now'. They were the last two people I wanted to see coming towards me. It was really painful, but the pain does go away because it's fully snapped, so once it's done, it's done.

GAA.ie: Who were those two team-mates who had also suffered torn ACLs and how many of your team-mates have torn ACLs in recent years?

AM: It was Ailish Morrissey and Andrea Trill, and I saw them walking around the outside of the pitch as I was walking back to the dug-out. Four Galway players tore their ACLs last season alone. I was the year before that. We've probably had one nearly every year, but last year was just ridiculous with four of them doing it. Ailish Morrissey was one of them again, she did her second ACL.

GAA.ie: Anecdotally it does seem like ACL injuries are very common now in LGFA. Has that been your experience?

AM: Yeah, it's massive. I did mine in January 2024 so I said I'd coach the club U-14 team for the year because I had nothing else to do and one of the girls on it, a 13-year-old, tore her cruciate at the Féile competition. So, the two of us rehabbed together for the year which was good in a way because she held me accountable. Any time I said I was going to the gym, I had to go!

GAA.ie: Talk to me about the early days and weeks of your rehab.

AM: I did the cruciate on the Saturday and I didn't get my MRI until the Thursday and I didn't get my results until the following Tuesday. I just feel like that was a very prolonged process that could have been avoided.

I was waiting six weeks for surgery then, so you're nearly up to two months then and you could be nearly back in the gym at that stage if things had gone a bit quicker.

That was one of the toughest things about it, the lack of guidance and pathway about what to do next and when you should do it.

I think there needs to be nearly a written guide for players who sustain ACL injuries. Something to tell them that this is what you do and this is the order you do it, because I didn't know what to do, I had no guidance, no help, it was just kind of like I had to do it myself.

The only information I got was from other girls who had done it, and you don't really want to be asking them when they're only back a few months and reminding them of what they've been through, you know?

It's already hard enough getting back at that time without thinking about the injury all over again. But I think there definitely needs to be something put in place to make it easier, because it was kind of a guessing game, really, for me, in terms of what I should be doing and where I should be at what stage, post-surgery, and stuff like that.

GAA.ie: How was the aftermath of the surgery?

AM: The first few days were really painful. You can't really move it at all and they're trying to get you to bend it and straighten it as much as possible. But it is very, very painful for the first few days. You're so restricted in what you can do.

You can't even sit in the front seat of a car. You have to sit in the back seat with the leg up. The first few days and weeks are just about getting full range of motion back in it. So you're just doing simple things like lying on the floor and trying to press your knee into the ground and pulling your ankle towards you.

It is very boring and it seems like you'll never get back kind of where you were when you're just literally trying to relearn such basics again.

GAA.ie: How did the rehab go post-surgery?

AM: Alison (Coneys), my physio, was really, really good, and I had really smooth sailing for months and months. I had my surgery on the 8th of March and then in October I got a bad flu and I had to take a week off just from everything, I was just really sick. I went back then to do a full pitch running session, I didn't ease myself back in basically, and I got tendonitis then in my patellar tendon, where they took the graft from and that set me back a lot.

I lost the full range of motion in my leg again, I couldn't straighten it, my quad started to wear away again. It was kind of like a vicious cycle. Your quad isn't working because your knee is sore, but your knee is sore because your quad isn't working, so that set me back, I'd say, a month or two in terms of getting back into contact training.

GAA.ie: What sort of psychological toll did the injury take on you?

AM: Yeah, it is a lonely enough road. Lucky isn't the right word, but the fact that I had that young girl in the club to rehab with helped because it felt like I kind of had a purpose when I had done it, that I could help her, because someone that age had never been in the gym before, and they didn't know what to be doing, so it was nice to give her a bit guidance through it all because I was a few months ahead of her. But it is really tough, it's lonely.

GAA.ie: Are you relying then on emotional support from your friends who have gone through the same thing?

AM: Yeah, you are, to be fair. Now, I think I dealt with it fairly well, to be honest. I knew I'd get back and the year flew for me. I knew there were things I needed to work on form-wise, running-wise, strength-wise, so I kind of looked at it as an opportunity to restart and come back even better. But it's definitely hard to kind of have that mindset, it wasn't like that at the start.

GAA.ie: Were you nervous coming back to full contact training?

AM: I definitely was. I had surgery in March and I was back into contact in February the following year. So, 11 months back into contact and it was big, wide pitch games, it wasn't small, enclosed tackling drills or anything like that yet. It was very much in a big area with not a lot of turning and cutting.

It's tough because you feel like you're just really slow and your reaction is slow and everything's just really slow at the start because you're so afraid of the quick movement that caused you to do it, you know?

GAA.ie: Over time did that confidence come back? Physically how have you felt since? Any issues with the knee or quad since?

AM: No, I actually haven't had any issues, touch wood, since I got back. But it does take a lot of months to be able to go out into the pitch and nearly forget that you have gone through that. For a while every game you'd be going out with it in the back of your mind. If you think you've forgotten about it and you then take a quick turn or you've fallen over, you quickly remember what you've gone through before. I'd say it wasn't until club championship in August last year when I really started to forget about it, which is a long enough time. But still now very time you go out you're grateful to come off the pitch with two good knees, you know?

GAA.ie: Because I guess it's a traumatic enough thing to go through?

AM: Yeah, definitely. It's not really spoken about how traumatic it is because it is such a drawn-out process and you're not the same when you come back, really. You don't play as freely or anything like that. Yeah, it's definitely a traumatic experience.

GAA.ie: Are ACL injuries talked about a lot in the Galway panel because they have been so prevalent? Are players almost thinking, 'I hope it's not me next'?

AM: Yeah, I definitely had that thought before I did mine – ‘will it happen to me?’ Definitely with us last year when there were four of them, everyone was thinking, 'who's next?'.

After those four cruciates we changed a lot of things in terms of our warm-up and our activation beforehand and, touch wood, we've had none since. You'd wonder if it's something so small like that that could kind of cause it.

GAA.ie: Was it quite triggering for you to see four team-mates tear their ACLs last year having gone through that experience yourself?

AM: Oh, absolutely. Ailish did hers in January, so I wasn't quite back yet, but then the other three happened as I was coming back so it was very scary to kind of commit into tackles. It definitely made it a lot worse, I think, to be honest, coming back. One of the girls did hers on the same pitch I had done mine, and I just walked the rest of the session. I was like, ‘it's just not worth it’. That was only in April, I don't think I'd even been in a match yet at that stage and I was just about to come back into getting game time. I just said, ‘I'm walking for this session now, because that's me done'.

GAA.ie: Is the psychological rehab from a serious ACL injury something that also needs to be looked at as well as the physical rehab?

AM: Yeah, I think that's especially important in the last few weeks before you return to play because of how daunting it is. I think if there was something available there in terms of psychological support it would be of great benefit to players coming back because that's definitely the part that I found hardest.

You're fine when you're running around on your own and in the gym because it's laid out for you and you know you're not going to get hurt, but it's definitely the months when you're just coming back into contact, it's definitely needed then.

GAA.ie: You certainly look like you're playing freely at the moment. Do you feel back to your best?

AM: Yeah, I think so. I stayed doing the S&C that we have with Galway in the off-season and I feel like that made a massive difference to me just to kind of build up even more strength that I had built up in the rehab. It just gives you a lot of confidence and peace of mind, you know, when you know you've done that in the background.

GAA.ie: Do you have to do extra S&C bits and pieces to keep on top of the quad and keep everything around the knee strong?

AM: Yeah, we're lucky the S&C we get with Galway is top class. It is definitely keeping me kicking over. It's more kind of before games and before training that I'm doing a lot of extra stretching and mobility and activation. My physio said I can't go out onto a pitch ever again without doing it.

GAA.ie: Did the enforced absence give you maybe a slightly keener appreciation for what football means to you?

AM: Yeah, 100%. Once I kind of came to terms with that I was going to be out of the year I knew it would either make me realise how much I loved it or whether I could live without it. I definitely came back with even more hunger for the game than I had before I did it.

You definitely get perspective and you either learn to really appreciate what you had or else you might realise it's not for you, do you know?

GAA.ie: Any tips for anyone who might have recently torn their ACL and is at the start of their rehab journey?

AM: I suppose the one thing about coming back from a cruciate is not to rush it and not to compare yourself to others.

A lot of people say you can come back in nine months, but I think that's very wishful thinking. Especially being a girl, you just don't put on the muscle mass as quick as lads would. So I think you need to just kind of take your own journey and go by milestones that you are reaching, not by months that you're reaching.